Calls 750MB more than enough

Orange UK has begun publicly responding to criticisms of its upcoming iPhone plans. At the center of complaints is the company's unlimited data provision, attached to each iPhone subscription. In reality data use is restricted by a 750MB "fair usage" policy, in sharp contrast to other iPhone carriers, such as O2 UK and AT&T.

A member of Orange's communications team, Conor Maples, insists that 750MB is far more than most iPhone users are likely to use. "We have had iPhone in other European countries for a while now & research shows the average user uses less than 200mb per month," Maples claims via Twitter. "750MB is actually quite a lot of Mobile Data too - it's about 5 hours of video downloaded from YouTube, 75,000 mobile web pages or 30,000 normal web pages....it's 250 full music tracks (if an average a track is about 3mb) or 1500 mobile games."

The carrier may eventually be pressured into raising limits, as it will have to compete with genuinely unlimited data at O2, and the forthcoming threat of Vodafone.

Maples has meanwhile attempted to quiet concerns that official terms and conditions could block apps such as Facebook and Spotify. "I can confirm that popular streaming services will not be banned for iPhone users," he adds. Orange will begin selling the iPhone on November 10th.

by MacNN Staff